Free Republic

Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong indicated that the crypto exchange would consider moving away from the U.S. if the regulatory environment for the industry does not become clearer. "Anything is on the table, including relocating or whatever is necessary" he said after former U.K. Chancellor George Osbourne asked whether he could see Coinbase leaving the U.S. at Fintech Week in London. "I think the U.S. has the potential to be an important market for crypto, but right now we are not seeing that regulatory clarity that we need," he said. "I think in a number of years if we don't...

Genesis Global Trading could be poised for bankruptcy less than two weeks after fellow cryptocurrency exchange FTX suddenly imploded. According to a Monday report from Bloomberg, Genesis has been facing a liquidity crunch as users spooked by the collapse of FTX began rapidly withdrawing their assets. Unnamed sources told the outlet that executives at Genesis have spent the past several days asking investors for $1 billion in fresh capital, which has not yet materialized. “We have no plans to file bankruptcy imminently,” a spokesperson for Genesis told Bloomberg. “Our goal is to resolve the current situation consensually without the need...

Coinbase users were unable to carry out US bank account transactions for around six hours on Sunday. An issue with the Automated Clearing House Network, which is used for electronic transfers between bank accounts in the country, emerged just before 7AM ET. The company said on its status page that it identified the problem, described as a "major outage," by 8:23AM and resolved it by 12:41PM. During the outage, users were still able to buy cryptocurrency with a debit card or PayPal account, as Decrypt noted. However, they weren't able to make withdrawals to a US bank account. Coinbase is...

So much for decentralized finance. The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., Coinbase, has been reportedly selling Immigrations and Customs Enforcement tools to track and identify cryptocurrency users, a stunning new report from The Intercept revealed this week. The company "sold a single analytics software license to ICE for $29,000" back in August 2021, the report says. The next month, however, it sold software worth $1.36 million to the agency, the report says.A contract involving the sales revealed that ICE "now has access to a variety of forensic features provided through Coinbase Tracer", the company's internal intelligence tool. The tool...

Until, two weeks ago, that is, when Armstrong broke his silence to update the world on how the company’s no-politics experiment was going. In a word: swimmingly. On October 1, Armstrong posted a tweet thread revealing that, contra prophecies that his company would face a mass exodus and public shunning over the ban, Coinbase has instead gained new staff comprised of professionals eager to work in an environment dedicated to clear corporate goals rather than murky outside social agendas. “We have a much more aligned company now, where we can focus on getting work done toward our mission,” Armstrong shared,...

Hackers stole from the accounts of at least 6,000 customers of Coinbase Global Inc, according to a breach notification letter sent by the cryptocurrency exchange to affected customers.The hack took place between March and May 20 of this year, according to a copy of the letter posted on the website of California’s Attorney General.Unauthorized third parties exploited a flaw in the company’s SMS account recovery process to gain access to the accounts, and transfer funds to crypto wallets not associated with Coinbase, the company said.“We immediately fixed the flaw and have worked with these customers to regain control of their...

Brian Armstrong is poised to become one of the richest people in the world after Coinbase Global Inc. goes public Wednesday. Coinbase, co-founded by Mr. Armstrong in 2012, runs the largest bitcoin exchange in the U.S. and is set to become the first major cryptocurrency-focused company to go public in the country. It is expected to fetch a valuation of between $65 billion and $100 billion, which could make Mr. Armstrong’s 20% stake worth up to $20 billion. That would put the 38-year-old chief executive among the 100 wealthiest people in the world, based on Forbes’ most recent billionaires list.

Deep-pocketed investors appear hungry for Coinbase equity ahead of the crypto exchange's long-awaited direct listing. As per data compiled by The Block, the average clearing price for shares on Nasdaq Private Market continues to tick higher since the first secondary sale four weeks ago. The most recent cleared price was $373 a share, which would imply a valuation of about $100 billion. That's an increase from the first average cleared price of $200 in January, according to data shared with The Block. Nasdaq enables secondary offerings for Coinbase stock, a process that allows ex-employees and investors of the crypto exchange...

Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently tweeted that “me-first capitalists” who disagree with injecting political activism into their workplaces will be “the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution.” The company has not commented if the tweet by Costolo, who has an estimated net worth of $300 million, violates its policies against glorifying violence. In a recent tweet, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo discussed a decision by Brian Armstrong, the CEO of the cryptocurrency firm Coinbase, to not promote political activism and social justice within the company. Armstrong’s comments fly in the face of ultra-progressive...

Every once and awhile, leftists reveal their anti-capitalist ideology for all to see. Such was the case with former Twitter CEO Richard Costolo on his Twitter account last night. News had broken that digital currency exchange Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had "discouraged employee activism and political discussions at work.” This set Costolo off on an anti-capitalist rant in a discussion with another Twitter user. Costolo wrote in response to Armstrong: “Abandoning the social contract with employees in favor of a purely economic contract in the guise of ‘championship team’ bs makes you a bank with a mission nobody really believes....

The FBI were able to track down three hackers who pulled off the largest Twitter breach in history because they were 'extremely sloppy' with how they moved their Bitcoin transactions around. Graham Ivan Clark, 17, of Tampa, Florida; Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida; and Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, U.K. have all be charged in relation to the hack, which took place on July 15. On that date, the men conspired to hijack Twitter accounts belonging to famous figures and companies - including Barack Obama, Kanye West and Uber - before they posted tweets asking for donations to...

December, 2017. I'm late to the game, I know. I set up an account on Coinbase.com. $100.00 to start. January, 2018. Another $100.00 transferred in to Bitcoin. Total in is $200.00 January, 2019. My Portfolio Value is $40.90.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Coinbase must supply the IRS with identifying information on users who had more than $20,000 in annual transactions on its platform between 2013 and 2015. After noticing that the number of tax returns claiming gains from virtual currency didn’t line up with the emerging popularity of digital currencies like bitcoin as an investment vehicle, the IRS asked Coinbase to hand over a broad swath of information on its users. Coinbase pushed back, and now the court has landed on a compromise that the company is calling a “partial victory.” “Coinbase...

Bitcoin ATMs are coming to the city. Josh Harvey, co-founder of Lamassu, showed off the first bitcoin dispenser at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show and has found quite a bit of interest for the $5,000 machines. The machine, designed and manufactured in Portugal, looks like a typical deli ATM — but functions more like a vending machine. You put in US dollars and receive bitcoins back on your phone.